I know this is probably not the answer you want to hear, but is this seriously something you feel your time is worth?

Anyway, to answer your question as well so that I don't just bloat your topic, your mage would probably have been level 1 since you started your Warlock at lvl 1, I guess? Why would you lose levels in death? Sylvanas retained her power after being raised to Undeath, too.

I know this is probably not the answer you want to hear, but is this seriously something you feel your time is worth?

Anyway, to answer your question as well so that I don't just bloat your topic, your mage would probably have been level 1 since you started your Warlock at lvl 1, I guess? Why would you lose levels in death? Sylvanas retained her power after being raised to Undeath, too.

First of all, leveling a class to 60 requires pretty much no time anymore and I wouldn't mind seeing the new zone changes from an alliance perspective since the cataclysm.

I did used to have a gnome Mage in vanilla who was lvl 60. This was way before you could change your race. One of my old friends used my account and got it banned because we were sharing my account... which is annoying because that would've been the obvious answer. However, the game has also made MASSIVE changes to classes since then, and I have no idea how mages play now... which doesn't pass for a convincing 'used-to-be-mage'.

I can't agree with the whole lvl 1 idea because WoW limits your ability to swap classes. If I were a mage of significant level and chose to be a warlock, I'd have started as a lvl 1 warlock but still hold the abilities of a high level mage (However you may change your opinion since you've found out I had a mage a long time ago anyway.) which is impossible... so it's all left to RP.

I've played a few other MMO's in the past where you could change your class slowly over time or combine classes... so it's probably something that's just programmed into my brain now as being important to my character. My character IS me, so I've always found it odd that you'd create a new character if you wanted your character to change his class.

For the record, Arthas became the Lich King 4 years BEFORE Vanilla WoW began. So your human mage must have died during the plague outbreak of Third War, which is year 20 by counting from First War and year 612 by King's Calendar.

What good would it be to play a human mage from stormwind to learn how to RP a human mage from Lordaeron in the past. There isn't anything you will learn leveling to 60 in alliance zones that will relate to life in Lordaeron, pre WC3.

You'd probably be better off playing WC2 and WC3 or reading up on their lore in order to craft your backstory.

I'm going on the assumption that you plan to level your mage to match the level of your warlock. I would say level him to approximately the same level. It really depends on what the story with your warlock is. What year is it? How long have you been a warlock for? I would say that after being a mage, picking up the magic a warlock uses would be easier than if you had started off as something like a warrior. So in this example, if your mage was level 60 when he died, your warlock level would likely be lower when you became a forsaken. I would say level 40 or so, but you could argue that you would start as a level one.

How long have you been a warlock for? If it's been a few years, then perhaps you have now leveled up past the level your mage was, and you should level your mage to indicate this.

Levels are there for the game not the lore. So honestly level it for the fun of it and use the info you gain from leveling to enhance your character. You would definitely have a basic understanding of the class again by the time you hit 60 though. I am not sure on the timeline to how mages have found new powers though. As if did Jaina know how to perform such a spell back in vanilla and now a mage in MoP knows how to do it cause it took them longer to be able to perform it.